


Home

by Istezada



Category: Original Work
Genre: All the Things happen off screen, F/M, Gen, Not that I'm entirely sure what's going on, This is just dealing with the aftermath, This is just where Ben and Alex said the story started and finished
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 22:49:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11323326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Istezada/pseuds/Istezada





	Home

She smelled like home.  Fury standing out in her brown eyes like icicles and that's what he noticed.  She smelled the same.

"... the fuck are you doing here, Ben?" she snapped, shoving him against the wall and leaning in like she wasn't shorter than he by several inches.

God, he was tired.  “Alex."

The shape of her name was so familiar, murmuring across his tongue.  How many times had he whispered her name into his elbow at night over the last few months?

She didn't look impressed.  “Where's Jules, Ben?"

Jules.

Memories of laughing blue eyes blotted out the singing anger of hers in front of him.  Ben swallowed against the rising swell of fear and pain.  “He's gone," he answered, his voice thick with emotions he'd far rather not look at too closely.

Her eyes narrowed and he found himself staring at the tight folds of suspicion around her lips.  “What do you mean 'gone'?"

She deserved to know.  He'd come back to tell her.  Idiot.  It wasn't as if he didn't know her phone number.  Backed against a wall with her arms crowding in on either side of his head, did she know...?

He closed his eyes and fought the panic, hands pressed against the rough brick behind him, fingertips scrabbling for purchase regardless of the pain.

She didn't know.  She couldn't.  No one knew who Jules had turned into, what he'd been like,  after...  Ben opened his eyes and stared back at her anger.  He should have just called—come up with the change, found a pay phone, and just called.

“Jules is..."  The word stumbled to a halt in his throat.  Damn it.  He pushed his spine straight, shoulders brushing her wrists and looked down into her face, only a few immeasurable inches away.  “He's dead."  The word finally jerked from between his teeth and lay there between them.

Tension leaked from her arms as her eyes widened in a shudder of... Horror?  Relief?  Ben didn't move.  Didn't look away.  Couldn't look away, some corner of his brain corrected with spiteful accuracy.

“Dead?"  Before he could nod, something he couldn't decipher woke behind the hurt and protective anger in her eyes.  “Did you kill him?"

His knees almost gave out.  Blue eyes, so full of what Jules was thinking.  Laughter, rebellion, contempt, power, joy, hate.  Lust for anything and everything that made him feel alive.

No, he hadn't killed Jules.

He still couldn't decide if he was ashamed of that or not.

The back of his skull protested and whatever that was in Alex's eyes sharpened.  He must have hit his head against the wall.  Smart, Ben.  Very smart.

“No," he finally said and looked away.  “I didn't kill him.  I..."

… tried to save him. 

Again, with the not being able to decide if he was ashamed of it or not.

“My god, Ben."

That.

That was definitely not relief.  Possibly not horror.  Something.  Gentle.

Gentle?

Alex?

This Alex, the one who'd been left after Jules' eyes were done with her?

A hand whispered past his shoulder, fingers skimming a path along the viny tattoo there.  “I'm sorry." 

His head narrowly avoided being thunked against the wall again.  She was sorry?  For what?

Evidently, she was going to tell him.  “That's... that must have been awful for you."

She wasn't joking.  He wasn't either as he nodded.

They stared at each other for a moment.  Everyone around here knew what Jules had done.  Not everyone knew Jules.  Her teeth caught at her lower lip and one finger traced lines on his face that he didn't know existed.  The hatred was gone from her eyes, leaving behind a barest hint of tears.

“I'm sorry," she repeated as if no one had ever said it to him before.

No one had.

That hand curled around his ear in passing as she straightened.

“Thanks," she said, “for coming to tell me."

A shadow of the old Alex in the way her fingers tucked hair away from her face.

She would have turned away if he hadn't caught her, pushing off the wall, closing the distance she'd begun to create.

“Alex."

Her name again as his hand cupped around her lower back.

But she stiffened.  At the touch.  At her name.  At the fact that he'd been there when it happened.  He didn't know.

Jules had done this to her.

Ben hadn't stopped him.

Damn it.

So tired of fighting everything.

“Lexie," he whispered, his head dropping beside hers.

Tension.

Everywhere.

One of her hands was frozen in the act of brushing hair behind an ear, the other was still propped against the wall.  He could almost feel the wariness in her eyes as she stared, more or less, at his cheekbone.

Once upon a time, this was normal.  She was a safe port where he could hide from the storms for a little while.  He could make her laugh.  She could make him cry.

Now?

Crying was a very, very real possibility.  Laughter, less so.

He would have snorted but his eyes were closed.

No.  That didn't make sense.

Shut up.

How could she still smell the same?

“I'm sorry," he breathed.  To her.  To himself.

Silently, her hand moved, shaped itself against his face.

For a moment, they stood like that before a nudge against his face made him lift his head from the torture of the half-recreated haven they'd both lost.

Like life was ever the same, one way or another, after Jules.

She looked up into his eyes, her touch falling gently to rest on his shoulder, nothing and everything in her gaze.

“I'm sorry," he repeated as if he'd never said the words to her before.

“I know," she said softly.

Somehow their knees left and they ended up on the ground, Alex leaning against the wall and he against Alex.  Her fingers ruffled through his hair and he dared to move again, his other arm curling protectively across her stomach.

For an eon of a second she stilled and he knew he was going to get a knee or elbow to the face.

Then she laughed a tiny triumphant whisper of a laugh.

And they both went limp with something too desperate to be relief.

“You smell nice," he pronounced into the soft cotton wrinkles of her t-shirt.

She laughed again, a little more normally this time.  A little.

He grinned fiercely at his own wrist.

“Ben McCormack," she said.  Probably there should have been more to that sentence, but she didn't say it.

He didn't notice.


End file.
